66 THE ACCUSATION AND THE DEFENCE. 



" Very well," said the Doctor ; " you'll send for me again 

 in a month after our return, and in that case, it may be, 

 that the money you paid Spalding for drawing your will, 

 will not have been thrown away. But in regard to the use 

 of the pipe ; I propose that we call upon Spalding, for 

 a legal opinion, or an argument in its favor. It's his busi- 

 ness to defend criminals, and I file an accusation against 

 smoking generally, excepting, however, from the indictments 

 the use of the pipe, as in some sort a necessity, on all such 

 excursions as ours." 



" I shall not undertake," said Spalding, " to enter into 

 a labored defence of the use of tobacco in any form. I 

 only move for a mitigation of punishment, and will state the 

 circumstances upon which I base my appeal to the clemency 

 of the court. The exception in the indictment, enables me 

 to avoid the plea of necessity, which I should have inter- 

 posed, founded upon a huge forest meal, and the abundance 

 as well as impertinence of the musquitoes of these woods." 



" I called the other day upon a venerable friend and client, 

 who is travelling the down hill of life quietly, and though 

 with the present summer he will have accomplished his three 

 score years and ten, his voice is as cheerful, and his heart 

 as young, as they were decades ago, when his manhood was 

 in the glory and strength of its prime. I found him sitting 

 in his great awn-chair, smoking his accustomed pipe, reading 

 the evening papers. He seemed to be so calm, and happy, 

 as the smoke went wreathing up from his lips, that I could 

 not for the moment refrain from envying the calmness and 



